Keyboard and mouse tips

Mouse modifiers

These modifiers will help you play DOS games on a trackpad or one-button mouse:

Action Shortcut
Click the right mouse button Ctrl ⌃+click
Click the left and right mouse buttons simultaneously Ctrl ⌃+Opt ⌥+click
or three-finger tap on trackpad
Lock/unlock the mouse from the window

This will also reveal the menu bar in full screen mode

Cmd ⌘+click

If these mouse shortcuts conflict with a game’s own controls, you can change them for that game from the Mouse Inspector.

Keyboard shortcuts

Action Shortcut
Skip the default program and start up at the DOS prompt Hold Opt ⌥ while gamebox is loading
Show/hide the Inspector panel Cmd ⌘+I
Toggle the numeric keypad Cmd+U
or hold Fn
Switch to/from full screen mode Cmd ⌘+F
Pause the emulation Cmd ⌘+P
or Play/Pause media key
Fast-forward the emulation Hold Cmd ⌘+Opt ⌥+
or hold Fast Forward media key
Speed up/slow down the emulation Cmd ⌘+Opt ⌥+/
Switch to previous/next CD Cmd ⌘+Shift ⇧+/
Take a screenshot Cmd ⌘+Shift ⇧+S

Additional keyboard shortcuts can be found alongside each item in Boxer’s application menus.

Simulating the numeric keypad

Many DOS games rely on a numeric keypad, which does not exist on Macbooks or Apple Wireless Keyboards.
Instead, you can hold down Fn to make part of the keyboard act as a numpad:

While Fn is held down the 789, UIO and JKL keys act as the 9 numpad keys, the “M” and “,” keys act as 0 and period, the “.” key acts as Enter and the 6 key acts as Num Lock. The column of keys to the right of these acts as /, *, + and - on the numpad.

The 7-8-9 numpad keys match up to the same numbers on the regular keyboard: you can use this to orient your fingers to the simulated numpad.

If you don’t want to keep Fn held down to access the numpad, you can also turn the numpad behaviour on or off with Emulation ▸ Simulate numeric keypad. This will take effect until you toggle the option again.

Common keyboard troubles

Accessing the function keys on a Mac keyboard

Mac keyboards adopt the F1F12 keys as hotkeys to control volume, screen brightness and other system functions. To make those keys act as regular function keys, hold down fn as you press the function key.

You can also send function key signals directly to DOS using the Emulation ▸ Send Key menu.

Keeping OS X hotkeys from interfering with games

Some OS X hotkeys overlap with the control schemes for DOS games, and can get in the way when playing. This is especially common with the Ctrl ⌃+/ shortcut to switch Spaces.

If possible, Boxer will disable these OS X hotkeys while you’re playing so they won’t interfere. To let Boxer do this, you must have “Enable access for assistive devices” turned on in your OS X Universal Access preferences pane.

Can’t find a particular key?

Boxer emulates an MS-DOS PC keyboard layout, and special characters (such as punctuation) are often in different places than where they’re labelled your Mac keyboard.

Try nearby keys and Shift ⇧-ed keys to find the character you’re looking for. On non-US keyboards, you can also hold down the right-hand Opt ⌥ key to access additional special characters.

Some keys found on DOS-era PC keyboards don’t exist at all on a Mac keyboard. If you have a game that needs such keys, you can send them using the Emulation ▸ Send Key menu.